


Our Last Days as Children

by mjules



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: M/M, Mass Effect 3 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-14
Updated: 2012-03-14
Packaged: 2017-11-01 22:38:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/362050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mjules/pseuds/mjules
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kolyat and Mouse during some of the events of Mass Effect 3.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Last Days as Children

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to ademska/kinneas for beta. Title is from the song of the same name by Explosions in the Sky.

“How is he?”

The voice comes out of the dark of the apartment, as nervous and small as the name of the man it belongs to. Mouse. That can’t have been what his mother named him, but Kolyat has never been given anything else to call him.

“Weakening. It almost hurts to see him so peaceful when I can hear…” Kolyat pauses, swallows. “I can hear him dying with every breath. I’m glad for him, but…”

“But it doesn’t seem like Krios. I understand.” There’s a silhouette to go with the voice now, Mouse creeping out of the shadows. Kolyat meets him halfway, in the dimness where the kitchen light fades, and Mouse twitches as Kolyat’s hands slide over his hips. He doesn’t pull away, though. “I’m sorry I haven’t gone with you again. I just…”

“No, it’s all right.” Kolyat flexes his hands against Mouse’s hips. “He’s my father.”

There are a million things unsaid in that sentence, but Mouse doesn’t try to tease them out of him. Kolyat is grateful. He says so with a kiss.

***

“He’s gone.”

He hasn’t seen Mouse yet, but he heard the rustle from the darkened bedroom that lets him know he’s not alone in the apartment.

“Kolyat, I’m… I’m sorry.” The voice is closer than he expected, and when he turns, he finds Mouse’s arms around him. He lets himself lean into the contact.

“He was happy when he went. She was with him.”

“Commander Shepard?” Mouse sounds surprised. “I guess she would have been, yeah. Wow.”

Kolyat pauses as the memory flashes before him: her face threatening to crumple behind the mask, her eyes wider, brighter, wet. Her voice shakes as she says quietly, “I always knew, but I guess I’d hoped…”

He blinks, coming out of the memory. “He is at peace now. Beyond the sea.”

Mouse presses a bit closer for a moment, and Kolyat can just see him worrying his lower lip in the dimness. “I’ll… go with you, to the priests, if you want.”

Kolyat fights a smile. Mouse went with him once. He couldn’t have twitched more if he’d actually had whiskers. He doesn’t like the priests; he says they make him nervous. This offer is costly for him. Kolyat turns so he is holding Mouse more firmly.

“No,” he says. “But thank you.”

***

Kolyat comes home to find Mouse throwing everything they own into bags.

“Kolyat! Pack your things! We’re leaving!”

Looking around, Kolyat can see most of his things are already packed, courtesy of Mouse’s nervous hands. “What? Why?”

“I got a bad feeling, dude. Something ain’t right. We’re catching a shuttle off this place.”

The Citadel has come to be Kolyat’s home; as far as he knows, it’s the only home Mouse has ever had. It has all the tight, dark spaces where Mouse feels safest, all the holes where he can hide -- even if Kolyat’s apartment has become his favorite of those holes. He can’t imagine leaving; more than that, he can’t imagine Mouse anywhere else, anywhere with fewer shadows and narrow passageways.

“Mouse. Be still.”

Mouse’s head jerks up at that, and his eyes go wide. “Why did you say that?”

Kolyat stares at him, bemused. “Because I need you to tell me what’s wrong.”

“Your father -- your father said that -- he used to -- Krios --” He stops, breathes in, focuses. “I dreamed about him.” Mouse’s hands are shaking now, and he’s pulling on his fingers. “We have to leave, Kolyat. We have to go. He told me.”

Kolyat frowns and fights off a pang of jealousy, of irritation. His father had spent more time with Mouse than with Kolyat as a boy, and even now, Mouse is the one being warned in dreams. He knows he’s being petty, but it still stings.

“Please,” Mouse says, clutching Kolyat’s arms. “ _Please._ Let’s… let’s find a nice garden planet somewhere. Or -- or hell, we can go to Tuchanka for all I fucking care. It’s dry, right? It’ll be good for your lungs. Maybe you won’t --” He stops and bites his lip, his fingers tightening. “Just… trust me. We have to get out of here.”

His eyes are wide, dark, pleading. The trust in his face undoes Kolyat, drawing his bitterness out like infection from a wound, and he sighs, then nods. “Of course,” he says, and Mouse leans up to kiss him, deep and grateful and pliant.

“Thank you.”

***

They’ve been on Tuchanka for two weeks, to the consternation of most of the local clan except Urdnot Grunt, who looked at him once, took a deep, disconcerting sniff, and said, “You’re that drell’s kid. The assassin. Looked frail, like you, but he helped me take down a thresher maw.”

“Y-yes,” Kolyat had said. “Thane Krios was my father.”

“He and Shepard made a good krantt.” That was apparently all it took to get them on the planet, although the clan leader, Urdnot Wrex, said something that sounded like “he’s just so damn squishy.” The female krogan with him had given him such a quelling look that he hadn’t spoken again except to welcome them to Tuchanka.

And now most of the krogan are going to Earth to fight, and Mouse is sprawled across Kolyat in their bed, skin warm and dry against his scales, pale in the harsh golden light. They heard yesterday that the Reapers took the Citadel to the Sol system, along with everyone inside. Mouse had not stopped trembling for an hour afterward, and Kolyat had felt a chill walk up his spine.

Mouse shifts just enough to scratch a place on his belly that is beginning to turn red -- too long exposed to Kolyat’s scales, he thinks, but neither of them moves. Too much in the galaxy is falling apart for something like a mild allergic reaction to separate them now.

“Kolyat,” Mouse whispers against his frill, and Kolyat hums, turning to look at him. “Thank you for listening to me. Thanks for… getting us out.”

Kolyat pushes Mouse’s hair back from his face and kisses him, long and slow and lingering. “Thanks for warning me.”

Mouse kisses him back, deeper, and Kolyat takes a moment to thank Kalahira for allowing his father to speak to Mouse, and another to thank Arashu for allowing him to protect this fragile thing they’ve built together. To watch Mouse die as the Citadel closed… He’s grateful he didn’t have to.

When they pause for breath, Mouse says simply, “I hope we win.”


End file.
